The Apocalyptic Mannequin: Poetry by Stephanie M. Wytovich

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-947879-13-3

Available: Paperback, Kindle

It is shocking and deeply disturbing to know that in the aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, many people continued to survive, suffered through radiation poisoning, and then died. This living death is the theme of a relentless catalogue of ugliness in The Apocalyptic Mannequin: Poetry by Stephanie M. Wytovich.

Wytovich intends this collection to be a warning about the end of the world, or the end of the world as we know it, through war, violence, disease, and finally death. The images in these poems accomplish this goal by painting a setting littered with bloated dead bodies, twisted metal and ashes. Bodies transform into “meat,” clothing into “gasmask couture,” and survivors into “mannequins” who wander the apocalyptic landscape crawling with plague and vermin, barely able to survive or inevitably wanting to commit suicide.

The poems build a narrative in snapshots from the chaos of the first post-impact days, through the struggle to find relief, and, ultimately, to what will be the new normal. Wytovich deftly uses sensory details to create transitions between groups of poems. The initial poems are extremely dark with scenes of destruction that reduce the imagery to a handful of repetitive words that mirror the setting in a literal way.

The next group of poems represents a middle stage in which the survivors struggle to make sense of a world in which they have lost communication. They feel left alone to make sense of a situation in which they must now protect themselves from other people in need who bang at their doors and windows. The speaker in these poems recognizes that the survivors must start over and “re-make Eve” “with the tree of knowledge growing” in their “wombs.”  However, this is not to say that there is much hope because in the final group of poems, instead of new plants growing, there are  ”blossoms of collagen” with “the forest floor” growing “femurs.” The imagery in this section involves shape and color to describe the poisoning of the environment.

In the final group of poems, the imagery becomes more familiar and symbolic because its origin is memory. The speaker’s heart is hidden in “trunks of abandoned cars” and “empty cafes,” and she feels like a “broken doll.” But the world has changed, and so has she. After experiencing tragedy, hunger,  anger, and abandonment, she has turned into a scarred “scavenger” and a witch who has “woken.” Meanwhile, the new world is, ironically, still full of impending death. That is its toxic message to us in these poems.

Contains: body horror

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Editor’s note: The Apocalyptic Mannequin was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in Poetry